Correspondence
CORRESPONDENCE Breadwinner Feminism In his otherwise admirable article "Condemned to Liberation: The Woman As Breadwinner" in your November issue, William Tucker omits the demand-for-labor aspect...
...It would be much, much less expensive, much safer, and much more conducive to individual freedom...
...A grown-up profession would not only accept these distinctions in performance, it would make them itself through a serious peer-review system...
...the 'modal form' of sexual behavior in the gay community is (or was until recently) frequent, impersonal sexual contact," he may well be perpetuating a major conceptual error...
...No matter how much unions or some implicit social consensus may fiddle with the supply of labor, no employer will offer a wage higher than the market price of the additional product turned out when he adds one more unit of labor (what the Austrian School calls labor's marginal value product, or MVP...
...Not, presumably, in comparative sexuality...
...It might be fruitful for Buchanan and Muir to re-examine their materials for bias, in light of the following points: 1) In the United States alone, there are approximately twenty million aware homosexuals, and this is a low figure in that it does not include those who are pretending not to be gay, and those who are under the age of, rough ly speaking, sixteen...
...are describing only a nonrepresentative sample of American gays...
...In a very similar way, and for similar reasons, gay studies are presently clouded tfyv skewed studies based on relatively small numbers of urban gays, especially those who see doctors...
...We finnish (fin, fine, finn) and we begin egan or again...
...Maybe you could hear those approaching torpedoes...
...We compromise those sources of strength to our peril, as the going-nowhere single-parent families of the urban ghettos testify...
...John S. Meyer Boulder, Colorado Carrier Strategy With respect to John Train's article ("America the Beautiful," TAS, November 1984) extolling the advantages of carriers in warfare, he carefully limits his discussion of war to that of brushfire engagements, where everyone politely refrains from using serious weapons...
...His disinterest in economics and the West made him justly hated out here, but many of us give him credit for binding French Canada into our federal system...
...What, pray tell, are you going to do to stop them...
...As rationale, I shared with the reporter my perception of what is really occurring regarding the reform movement...
...Among the medieval Christians...
...Among the Egyptians...
...The proper answer for a free people is as good a defense as possible, and a spit-in-their-eye philosophy...
...If Dr...
...Boswell on this piquant subject...
...David Turner Atlanta, Georgia Windy Moralizers It is with a profound sense of inadequacy that I dare to enter the lists against so overwhelming a master of the flashing wit and flawless documentation...
...This error, in * my view, is the result of two factors: 1) bias toward reporting only certain levels of urban gays...
...As for "peer review," yes, the NEA summoned up a study of "the systems currently used to evaluate teachers...
...Metzger's theory were correct, AIDS should have appeared in the general population, since there are many more heterosexuals out there doing peculiar things to each other than there are homosexuals doing same...
...3) the great majority of these gays, who are scarcely reported on at all, may well be as healthy and sensi ble as any compatible group of hetero sexuals...
...Metzger appears to believe that homosexuality only recently has developed, or only recently in significant numbers to be important, and that the new sexual pioneers have reawakened a virus dormant since Cro-Magnon man...
...When Muir states in his reply to Metzger...
...As to your oxymoron, "honorable atheists and agnostics" (my emphasis), I don't think you really want to defend that position, do you...
...I responded that we (educators) need to raise the graduation requirements and to also strengthen the curriculum to make it more challenging...
...Separatism was a quite real possibility...
...We need to make sure all children master the basics, i.e., reading, writing, arithmetic, as well as science, computer technology, foreign languages, and the fine arts...
...Although Tucker cites no figures for this point, I am inclined to believe him, but I wonder why the principal reason for this state of affairs, i.e., the inflation of the 1970s, gets such short shrift in his article...
...It is probably no coincidence that the consensus on the "family wage" was only reached early in this century, after the sharpest rise in labor's MVP in the world's history had occurred during the previous generation...
...In addition to that, jamming of well-designed synthetic aperture radars has been shown to have little effect on such detection...
...Finn, as is his custom, did not bother to ask anyone at NEA what our positions really are on the issues he insists on raising...
...and a philosophy which does not accept value as eternal and objective can lead us only to ruin...
...Then, either nuclear detonation beneath the task force, or a steep climb to hit ships of the task force from directly below...
...Several months ago, I was asked by a reporter my impression of the impact of efforts to increase the graduation requirements and to strengthen the curriculum, especially the heavy emphasis on science and math...
...Metzger's mental fog is provided by another of his surprising sentences: "Likewise, it is today no surprise to those who understand epidemiology to see that when a small population among us decides to revive the sub-human practice of mouth-to-anus contact, the way homosexuals do, that a heretofore unknown but not truly extinct virus, such as AIDS, should suddenly reappear in that population...
...The title "Finnegans Wake" conveys two opposing ideas: the wake, or funeral vigil, of the great-god Fin-negan...
...Mutual assured suicide (MAD) isn't the answer, and neither is a continuing series of broken Soviet treaties...
...A clue to Dr...
...I would like to clarify two points made in that article dealing with NEA...
...It then launches its torpedoes, perhaps nuclear-tipped, to run at depth (perhaps 1,000 feet) until reaching the task force...
...The definition in my Webster's New Universal Abridged Dictionary that seems most apt to your inference would be: "2...
...For the first time since the beginning of the industrial revolution wages could rise high enough to permit the luxury of only one wage earner per family...
...It is unfortunate that Mr...
...Theodore W. Thieme Bloomington, Indianaeir "devastat ing expose...
...Tucker would like to believe that although inflation is down and the economy is expanding, women are not leaving the workforce to return to those very important duties of childrearing, housekeeping, and community service...
...Soviet orbital radars have been demonstrated to be able to locate submerged subs- an interesting item when considering the "invulnerability" of our missile subs...
...Instead, the NEA suggested a high across-the-board salary increase...
...These intangible quantities have proved to be some of the most important for establishing our culture as the preeminent force for good in the world...
...Has Dr...
...There are around 5 million of them and they were here second, after the In dians...
...Additionally, the NEA is opposed to any alternative compensation plans that act as a substitute for the proportionate across-the-board salary increases all teachers need and deserve...
...Metzger's letter represents a misguided attempt to medical-ize and scientific-ize what is in fact an untenable position: namely, the quasi-religious notion that AIDS is "God's judgment on homosexuals," or something of the sort, here worked out in terms of pseudo-science...
...Lewis adjured that "a Christianity which does not see moral and religious experience converging to meet at infinity, not at a negative infinity, but in the positive infinity of the living yet superpersonal God, has nothing, in the long run, to divide it from devil worship...
...That vaginitis is God's judgment on women...
...Nemoianu's appropriation was unintentional and not premeditated...
...Metzger forgotten history...
...See The Roots of American Order, Russell Kirk, p. 85...
...The truth is that very few, if any, of our present weapons systems could survive a determined Soviet first-strike at this time...
...Theodore W. Thieme Bloomington, Indianaiana...
...But he must awake to the logic of his position sooner or later...
...But what of history, one wonders...
...I paid particular attention to the piece written by Chester E. Finn, Jr...
...Has Dr...
...As for today, religion may be the moral foundation for many but not for those honorable atheists and agnostics for whom religion, as commonly defined, has no usefulness whatsoever...
...4) at the very least, there is no justification for assuming otherwise without evidence...
...We and our rulers are of one kind only so long as we are subject to one law...
...Metzger read Dr...
...Tucker comes close to making these points, particularly the last one, but they are worth making explicit lest we forget that there are economic limits to intellectual and social evolution...
...Well, perhaps you do...
...And there seems no question that certain elements in gay society need to "clean up their act...
...He seems unaware, in his oddly ignorant letter (Correspondence, TAS, November 1984), that the mouth-to-anus contact on which he builds his etiology for AIDS is neither omnipresent in homosexual behavior nor absent in heterosexual behavior...
...And that, in view of the risks attached to all-too-frequent false alarms, is not really the way to go...
...and that AIDS has only recently reappeared for reasons which are presently unknown...
...Why did AIDS not appear among the ancient Greeks...
...Is it possible that Buchanan and Muir, in their "devastat ing expose...
...Now all becomes clear: Dr...
...Then, in terms of the ability to detect enemy subs "100 or more miles away," well, just a few months ago, we were desperately trying to locate a Soviet sub with our fancy ASW gear, and having very little luck, when the sub fouled one of our new high-tech transponders and took it home...
...NEA has been on record as supporting meaningful teacher evaluation for many years...
...For example, in a number of school districts, including my own, the number of students enrolled in music has dropped by 50 percent...
...I am accustomed to such literary gangsterism from the commissars at Time and New York magazine, but not from the copy desk of the Spectator...
...But if there is no Law of Nature, the ethos of any society is the creation of its rulers, educators and conditioners...
...Their sub-launched ballistic missiles would hit each SAC base within five to seven minutes, as well as other strategic targets and some ICBM silos...
...Most students are not born with the gift to simply play a musical instrument o or to paint pictures...
...Try another scenario: The Soviet sub (like the one which managed to collide with one of our carriers recently), quietly patrols near the carrier task force until the preset attack time...
...My thanks-and apologies-to Anthony Burgess, Re Joyce, for the above elucidation...
...Among the Israelites...
...Surely the women's liberation movement only gave the majority of potential women workers an ideological excuse to seek to remedy the all too real problem of their families' shrinking economic worth...
...It seems to this reader that Dr...
...This is the predictable behavior of an antiquated union but not that of a oresponsible professional association...
...Newer Soviet subs are getting quiet, folks, in addition to being able to dive twice as deep as ours, withstand far rriore underwater explosive force, and even outrun some of our modern torpedoes...
...Subjectivism about values is eternally incompatible with democracy...
...In addition, we called for more rigorous exit criteria, including oral and written tests, student teaching, as well as an overall high grade point average...
...CORRESPONDENCE Breadwinner Feminism In his otherwise admirable article "Condemned to Liberation: The Woman As Breadwinner" in your November issue, William Tucker omits the demand-for-labor aspect of his argument...
...They may not be, but I submit the verdict is not yet in: It took many years of inflation to restructure the workforce, and it may well take as many or more to set things aright again...
...My own enthusiasm sank, however, wherr I encountered the phrase "Wilder wrote 656 pages of notes about Fin-negan's Wake...
...At the Minneapolis meeting that Mrs...
...and every creator stands above and outside his own creation...
...And what of the fact, frequently noted in this connection, that Lesbians are God's Chosen Few...
...Finally, we voted to increase standards for teachers entering the profession...
...Radar satellites can and do plot the positions of all surface ships (at least, the Soviets do-we apparently don't have any in orbit...
...If "good" means only the local ideology, how can those who invent the local ideology be guided by any idea of good themselves...
...We might even like it...
...This apparently means, in Dr...
...More of the latter might mean not on ly the necessity of female participation in the workforce, but child-labor as well...
...Their talents must be developed...
...That includes, in our opinion, better selection criteria for students entering colleges and universities, two years of liberal arts training, a careful selection of candidates to enter the teaching profession, a more rigorous teacher training program with a higher emphasis on the mastery of the basics and subject matter, classroom management, and the ability to impart knowledge and to work with children...
...Mary Hatwood Futrell President National Education Association Washington, D.C...
...NEA did vote to recommend that starting salaries for teachers be raised...
...Unfortunately, and characteristically, Mr...
...Here's to hoping that Mr...
...It is certainly much more difficult to refute sound and substantial work in the field of gay studies such as that of Buchanan and Muir (TAS, August and November 1984...
...My familiarity with debate is limited to knowing that debate is what you put on de hook...
...However, NEA delegates did not vote to oppose peer review...
...Many a popular "planner" on a democratic platform, many a mild-eyed scientist in a democratic laboratory means, in the last resort, just what the Fascist means...
...We continue to believe that merit pay is not the answer to the problems we face in education as we try to attract new teachers and keep the many good teachers we already have...
...Conversely, Women's Lib probably could only begin to goad (or rather seem to goad) large numbers of otherwise "unliberated" women to enter the labor force during a time when a relative dearth of people in the productive age groups, diversion of savings-investment to taxes, and a general decline in morale and coherent thinking caused labor's MVP to grow only feebly...
...The problem is that while some teachers are grossly underpaid, because they are outstanding teachers, a handful are overpaid, because they are dreadful teachers...
...Lewis goes on to say: Nor is the matter of speculative importance...
...to create consciences by eugenics, psychological manipulation of infants, state education and mass propaganda...
...actuated by principles of honor or a scrupulous regard to probity, rectitude, or reputation...
...For you to posit that Plato would, somehow, be surprised to hear morality founded in religion, is not a little startling in view of his affirmation in his last dialogue, The Laws, "It is God who is, for you and me, the measure of all things...
...Richard Baer Victoria, British Columbia Fine Points I read with interest Virgil Nemoianu's review of The Enthusiast: A Life of Thornton Wilder (TAS, November 1984...
...Nine out of every ten teachers who leave the profession do so because of inadequate salaries...
...In your "Windy Moralizers" (Editorials, TAS, November 1984) you assert that on the question of religion in politics there has been nothing else but hypocrisy and cant...
...Our vote underscores the action of the 1981 Representative Assembly which supported the "Profiles of Excellence," calling for revision and upgrading of teacher training programs...
...To be sure, Tucker is right on the money when he says the nuclear family is "a most durable institution" and is highly efficient economically, yet shouldn't we resist the kind of reductionism which sees the family almost exclusively in economic terms...
...This may inadvertently encourage some readers to jump to the incorrect conclusion that direct or indirect influence over the supply of labor is alone sufficient to determine its price...
...Edward H. Kaplan Bellingham, Washington William Tucker's very stimulating essay, "Condemned to Liberation," makes the astounding point, among others, that the large-scale influx of women into the labor force has actually tended to reinforce the economic necessity of the nuclear family because the paychecks of solitary individuals just don't stretch as far as they once did...
...Among the Moslems...
...Why not try it...
...Metzger's terms, that since the full development of Man, there have been no homosexuals, and indeed no perverse heterosexuals...
...To the contrary, they voted to support a study of current evaluation systems, including peer review, for the purpose of identifying systems which best strengthen the effectiveness of teachers in the classroom...
...and 2) bias on the part of those gays doing the reporting and conceptualizing, who are frequently radical, militant, and non-representative...
...Although the revisionists haven't yet succeeded in rewriting Joyce's masterpiece, more and more reviewers have accepted the notion that Joyce somehow left out an apostrophe in his title...
...Finn does not represent the true context in which it was originally made...
...Obviously, he did not accurately reflect the NEA's positions...
...Metzger has fallen into two of the commonest of traps: the idea that increased reportage of a phenomenon implies increased incidence (thus homosexuality, newly reported, must be new...
...He believes that it is the function of him and his kind to condition men...
...The National Education Association will continue to work to establish high expectations and standards in our schools, for a pleasant and orderly learning environment, for a rigorous and challenging curriculum, and for high standards for the members of the teaching profession...
...They must be trained to play a musical instrument or to paint expertly...
...Even non-yumpie families, whose notions of a dignified standard of living had not undergone any great inflation, discovered that economic leisure for all but one family member had become a no longer affordable luxury...
...Lannon F. Stafford Daily News Digest Phoenix, Arizona NEA Concerns It was with great interest that I read the article which appeared in the September 1984 edition of The American Spectator entitled, "Excellence in Education: The First Year and Beyond...
...I find it hard to understand how this newly-conceived, atomistic, individualistic, "every man and woman for him/her/self kind of nuclear family will promote "the emo tional and personal satisfactions" and social stability which characterized the old-style nuclear family of the one breadwinner days...
...but as Christopher Marlowe said, "I'm armed with more than complete steel-the justice of my quarrel...
...Because he is confused, he does not yet fully realize that those who create conscience cannot be subject to conscience themselves...
...entitled, "The Excellence Backlash: Sources of Resistance to Educational Reform...
...That sickle cell anemia is God's judgment on Negroes...
...Traveling across the country I have been made aware of a real concern expressed by parents and educators that the heavy emphasis being placed on science and math is causing many students not to select music, art, and humanities, or vocational courses as part of their curriculum...
...Don Cramer Cumberland, Wisconsin Gay and Other Ms In what field does H. Peter Metzger of Boulder, Colorado hold a Ph.D...
...are describing only a nonrepresentative sample of American gays...
...The very idea of freedom presupposes some objective moral law which overarches rulers and ruled alike...
...Self-sacrifice should be the order of the day, not self-aggrandizement...
...NEA believes that every teacher should be evaluated annually and that the evaluation procedure must be a comprehensive one designed to help teachers improve their instructional and professional skills...
...In any case, conducting a study is a time-honored means of avoiding a decision...
...C.S...
...At least as important as the supply offered of labor is the quantity of it employers will demand...
...Obviously, every person- musician, artist, dancer, poet, teacher, doctor, journalist-needs to have a solid educational background, but we must not forget the fine arts or the humanities...
...Finn's statement is not an accurate reflection of what transpired at the Representative Assembly this summer...
...The statement is correct, but the context in which it was used by Mr...
...This kind of thing is easy enough to refute rationally...
...After all, a mere four years of Reaganomics does not a family wage make, especially in view of the enormous economic problems Reagan inherited...
...He believes that "good" means whatever men are conditioned to approve...
...as he is an honorable man...
...Among the black Africans of varied types and persuasians...
...His opinions on Pierre's chief accomplishment, bilingualism, are absurd...
...and the waking up of all Finnegans...
...Why not...
...First of all, on page 14, item 9,1 am quoted as follows: "With such a heavy emphasis on science and math, where will our writers, poets, artists and musicians come from...
...Furthermore, the delegates did vote to oppose merit pay...
...Finn's article he states: "But over the Fourth of July weekend the National Education Association again vowed resistance to anything resembling higher standards for teachers, peer review of classroom performance, merit-based pay, or career ladders...
...I, too, believe that most teachers are underpaid, notwithstanding the 180-day year that most of them work...
...In the event of a "serious" war, programming intermediate-range missiles or ICBMs to drop a few warheads around each carrier task force would have a truly remarkable effect on our Navy...
...This is wonderful science fiction, but most irresponsible if taken for science...
...But even if we have a sustained economic expansion and women do not return home, I'm not at all comfortable with the prospect of this Tucker-styled nuclear family...
...Were there no homosexuals among the ancient Babylonians...
...I'm afraid one man's umbrage is another man's cavil, but here is the point at issue...
...only a madman could maintain that the distinction between the honorable and the dishonorable, between virtue and vice, is a matter of opinion, not of nature...
...and go home...
...Futrell says I misrepresented, the delegates ratified the statement that "the NEA is unalterably opposed to so-called merit pay plans...
...To arrive at probity, rectitude, or reputation without an appeal to objective values, is to abandon eternal truths for temporal hopes, solid rock for shifting sands...
...These "systems" so rarely include peer review today that it seems quite unlikely that much will be learned on that particular point...
...For example, if we accept the principle that the population in which a disease or condition appears is to be blamed for it, does this mean that "Infant Crib Death Syndrome" is God's judgment on infants...
...The two words embody Giovanni Battista Vico's cyclical theory of history, which underpins the novel...
...Women of the world, unite...
...As Cicero said, in De Legibus...
...And let's not play the game that even a big carrier could take a hit from a small nuclear warhead below the water line...
...and when he does, what barrier remains between us and the final division of the race into a few conditioners who stand themselves outside morality and the many conditioned in whom such morality as the experts choose is produced at the experts' pleasure...
...Quebec is not analogous to Hispanics in your sunshine states...
...replies: I have no quarrel with Mrs...
...Futrell about "the humanities" if by that term she means the serious study of history and literature, and I certainly have no objection to school curricula that include the fine and applied arts- provided these are supplements to and not replacements for the central academic disciplines...
...Metzger's education is fully established when he states, "Naturally, those human societies which condemned such contact as taboo quickly became much healthier than those which didn't and in the normal course of natural selection, the former survived as the human norm at the expense of the latter...
...Without doubt, the increasing accuracy of Soviet ICBMs means that Minutemen, MX, and proposed Midgetman ICBMs will be terribly vulnerable unless a launch-on-warning policy is adopted...
...2) of this gross population, only a relatively small percentage are the "fast-track" urbans on whose statistics so much work is based...
...The inadequacy of Dr...
...Federalist Pierre John Muggeridge's article on Trudeaumania, "Canada's Crack-Up" (TAS, October 1984), describes most of what we've been enduring quite well...
...We believe teachers deserve to be paid salaries commensurate with their skills and responsibilities, so that the profession can compete with industry and with other professions in our society...
...A grown-up profession would embrace the principle of peer review and then perhaps conduct a study of the best means by which to carry it out...
...defusing it will likely be seen as Trudeau's sole accomplishment...
...We have no defenses against such ballistic missiles, remember...
...The actual facts are that homosexuality has been a part of the norm of human experience throughout history and in all known populations...
...Secondly, near the end of Mr...
...That it has been a debate "in which hardly an accurate statement has been heard, including the President's August 23 claim that 'morality's foundation is religion.' That would be news to Plato...
...The "invulnerable" missile subs, of course, are completely vulnerable when located and tracked, and every indication says the Soviets have successfully bought, stolen, or developed the technology necessary to accomplish this sub hunt...
...and the idea that the population in which a disease or condition appears is to be blamed for it...
...A more generous dose of the former will be salutary for all, especially the poor...
...However, before Buchanan and Muir is fully accepted as "this devastating expose . . . etc., etc.," it might well be worthwhile to raise a question about their methodology...
...Sociologists have often been criticized as being biased in viewing the world through the eyes of the urban poor, and as being deaf to complaints that much of the human world does not consist of the urban poor...
...Chester E. Finn, Jr...
...That, in turn, has a lot to do with the quantity and quality of the capital goods at labor's disposal, things over which "family wage" and women's liberation movements have little or no control...
Vol. 18 • February 1985 • No. 2
